Post # 49.4: Sad panda

Silly pandas, you forgot explosive diarrhea! I still want to hug you though.

This might have to be a quick post, because I can feel my stomach gearing up for round 3 (4? who knows). I went WAY out on a limb and had white rice and chicken for dinner tonight instead of my usual white bread, and now it seems like I'll be paying the price for my culinary audacity.

Random quandary, is my pee neon yellow because of the new med, or because I'm drinking so much freaking Gatorade? Also, DIGESTIVE SYSTEM, what do you tolerate super creepy yellow #5 dye, but not ORGANIC CHICKEN AND RICE!? gah.

So, as the pandas are pondering above, I am pretty much down to those two activities: eating (bread and Gatorade) and sleeping. I sleep a sloth like amount. It's gotten to the point where I rotate sleeping spots, just to shake things up and prevent person-size indentations in all of the beds/sofas in the house. Normally, due to my AAC, I can get fatigued, but I try to limit my napping so I don't stay up at night, playing blackjack and re-reading old copies of O the Oprah magazine. Now, however, I don't even bother, because I could take three naps during the day and still fit in a robust 8 hours at night. What's the point? I'm like a geriatric cat that no one wants to poke because he's old, and crotchety, and doesn't want to play with you anyway, so why not let him sleep and have happy mouse dreams or whatever.

Sigh.

When your doctor consults you about new treatment options, he might bring up the term "risk/benefit analysis." This basically means that in making the decision to try a new medication, do the benefits outweigh the potential side effects? I haven't been on this medicine for very long, but I'm kind of  miserable. I sleep all the time, my stomach hurts, I'm nauseous and spacey and dizzy. It might take 2-3 MONTHS to kick in, so in the meantime I'm still dealing with a pissed off AAC. Why am I doing this again? It's hard to stick with the program when the program is kicking your ass and not solving your (colon related) problems.

ps: I follow the blog Ali on the Run (it's on my feed), and I think she's a badass in general (running! with colon explosions!) and especially with the Crohn's stuff. She's in the hospital getting a workup, and even though I totally don't know her, I am sending super happy "I hope they figure out how to deal with your AAC" thoughts her way.